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“Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.” – General Douglas MacArthur

Memorial Day is an important day for everyone, in many cases, serving as a day to remember and pay respects to loved ones no longer present. At the same time, it is a time to honor those who have laid down their lives protecting our great country. This day of remembrance centers around those who have given the ultimate sacrifice to defend our ever-growing nation we all know and love. Today, we pay our profound respects to those who have sacrificed in service for the protection of the United States and our fundamental freedoms. It is without question the exceedingly brave and compassionate person who is willing to lay down their own life to protect the lives, freedoms, and prosperity of their fellow citizens. We owe a debt of gratitude to our fallen heroes that we can never repay.

It’s Memorial Day, so that means that summer has officially began. But this holiday has a deeper history than to mark the change of seasons. It began as a day to remember the fallen soldiers of the Civil War, and after World War II it expanded to honor all deceased soldiers. The main event of the day used to be decorating the graves with flowers, hence the original name Decoration Day. Over the years however it has become Memorial Day marked by parades and by the opening of summer venues.

As we remember those we have lost in the service to our nation, we want to thank those who have done service and those who are in service now. We appreciate the work of the individuals who give back to their nation. This day is dedicated to them.

At this time we would also like to introduce our new mentor, Roy M. Elam Jr., and our volunteer writer, Maria Lacey. Army retiree, Roy M. Elam Jr. has a BA in Liberal Arts from Western Illinois University, a Master in Distance Education from the University of Maryland University College and a MS in Human Resource Education from the University of Louisville. He is the Technology Integration Cell Chief at the New Systems Training Branch at the Directorate of Training and Doctrine, MCoE at Ft. Benning, GA and he conducts research on the effectiveness of games as an instruction tool.

Maria Lacey has a BA in English from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is a freelance writer and is currently working as an administrative assistant at the UNLV Admissions office. Her interests include writing about social justice and gender issues. She currently resides in Las Vegas, NV with her family. For more information, please visit her website www.mlaceywriting.com.

The next scholarship deadline is 31 July. See the www.LintCenter.org for more information about recent winners and future competitions. We are also continuously looking for additional volunteers, interns and mentors.

The Lint Center for National Security Studies is proud to announce that Staff Sgt. Richard S Eaton Jr. was recently honored with a biographical plaque at the US Army Reserve Center Memorial at Fort Meade.

The transcript of the plaque biography reads:

SSG Richard Selden Eaton, Jr., a CI Special Agent and “soldier’s soldier” who represented the very best of the non-commissioned officer corps, was born 9 February 1966 in New Haven, Connecticut. He grew up in Wallingford, Old Lyme, and Guilford, Connecticut — his family home for 29 years. He attended The Wooster School in Danbury, CT and graduated from Guilford High School in 1985. He continued his education at Seoul University for language studies, the University of Connecticut and Southern Connecticut State University with a major in International Studies.

Throughout his 18-year Army career, 13 Active Duty and 5 in the Army Reserves, SSG Eaton served in numerous duty positions that included extensive tours in South Korea with the 2nd ID and two tours with JTF-B in Honduras. He also served on special missions in the Philippines (Feb., 1986) and Panama (Dec., 1989). He joined B Company 323rd MI BN as a reservist in 1998 and worked as a DC area contractor with Sytex and BAE. While working for Sytex, he authored “Introduction to CHATS and CHASIS (the Army CI Human Intelligence Automated Tool Set and All-Source Integration System),” Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, 24: 24-27 October-December 1998. He was a co-founder and co-moderator of the online Army Counterintelligence Discussion Group (ACIDG-L). While working as a BAE contractor for G2, he and other staff escaped death on September 11, 2001 due to the remodeling of their Pentagon office. A G2 staff member and an electrical contractor were killed by the hijacked airliner while making final plans for computer installations.

SSG Eaton was also a former civilian employee of INSCOM at Fort Belvoir, VA. Four months before his 2003 OIF deployment he was a contractor in South Korea at Kunsan AFB. Though accepted by a South Korean reserve unit, he cancelled the paperwork and chose to deploy with the 323rd MI BN. He was a tireless NCO, superb trainer and a professional soldier. He was the Bravo Company Training NCO and a co-author of the CI portion of the Battalion Tactical SOP. During his mobilization in Kuwait and Iraq he served with distinction on many assignments while attached to the 221st MI BN, the 223rd MI BN and the 3/3 ACR.

In his last assignment SSG Eaton conducted missions for the 3/3 ACR as a CI HUMINT team leader in the Sunni Triangle region of Iraq. After a protracted firefight on August 11, 2003 in Hit, in which he rescued a heat-stricken soldier under live fire, he died after medical treatment the next night from heat stress and rhabdomyolysis.

SSG Eaton’s awards include the Bronze Star with oak leaf cluster (one for merit and the other for valor), Army Commendation Medal (three oak leaf clusters), Army Achievement Medal (one silver and one oak leaf cluster), Good Conduct Medal (three awards), National Defense Service Medal (one star device), Army Superior Unit Award, Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon (two devices), Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon (five awards), and the Expert Marksmanship Badge with bars for rifle, pistol and grenade. He was nominated for the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame and received the Thomas G. Knowlton Award and the 3/3ACR’s Order of the Spur.

His survivors were his father, Richard Selden Eaton, Sr., deceased in 2005, and mother, Sharon Noble Eaton, of Guilford, CT. They established the Richard S. Eaton. Jr. National Security Book Collection at the University of New Haven and the SSG Richard S. Eaton, Jr. History Scholarship at Guilford High School. The non-profit Lint Center for National Security Studies established the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Agent SSG Richard S. Eaton, Jr. Memorial Scholarship in 2009.

The US Army Counterintelligence Agent SSG Richard S. Eaton Jr. Memorial Scholarship is awarded on a competitive basis for students pursuing scholastic study in the fields related to “Alliance Building, Counterintelligence, Cultural Understanding, and National Security studies.”

The Lint Center for National Security Studies is ever-honored to be connected with CI Agent SSG Eaton Jr. and his family, and we always hope that our work will help the next generation of national security workers to follow in the footsteps of the heroes that came before them.

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There are no paid positions at the Lint Center.

The Lint Center for National Security Studies, Inc. assists students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school.